See how Green Arc Energy Advisors dramatically altered St. Bart's interior and exterior lighting with high-performance, extremely efficient LED lighting.

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 13, 2019 / Green Arc Energy Advisors Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Guy Albert de Chimay has recently announced that the company has completed the conversion of traditional lighting to LED lighting on the south-facing exterior facade of St. Bartholomew's Church along 50th Street in midtown Manhattan. By converting all existing exterior metal halide floodlights to LED fixtures, St. Bart's new LED lighting now beautifully accentuates the architectural details of the facade at night, while also providing enhanced safety around the perimeter. This completes a multi-phase retro-commissioning project to visually elevate St. Bart's majestic architectural and design details with LED lighting.

St. Bart's is a national historic landmark located at 325 Park Avenue. The parish was established in 1835, and the church on Park Ave was erected in 1918 and fully completed in 1930. One hundred years later, St. Bart's has received an illumination makeover with high-performance, energy-efficient, long-lasting LED lighting. Initially, the conversion focused on the importance of bringing renewed life to the interior at night, including the view through the many stained-glass panels by passersby. The original interior tungsten halide fixtures were simply incapable of delivering sufficient lumens to be practical or aesthetically eye-catching. Perfectly positioned LED fixtures now provide vibrant luminosity that accentuate the interior, while profoundly enhancing the colors of the stained glass panels as a result of the great color-rendering attribute of LED lighting.

'Green Arc has done an incredible job providing wonderful, energy-efficient architectural lighting that not only enables us to truly appreciate the beauty of our landmarked church, but also drastically increases the versatility of our space,' said Corey Durney, Director of Facilities at St. Bart's. 'We are particularly impressed by Green Arc's thorough and consistent follow up after installation, ensuring all aspects of our lighting design project reach optimal performance.'

Green Arc previously completed Phase 1 of the conversion project in October 2018 by replacing existing 250-watt exterior and 300-watt interior floodlights with new 300-watt RGB LED light fixtures. The existing 250-watt metal halide floodlight exterior fixtures, mounted on the exterior steel framework on the Park Avenue western-facing facade, exceeded their useful lifespan and were no longer operational, leaving the exterior in near darkness. The interior 300-watt tungsten halide units were theatrical wash fixtures that emitted only minimal useful light, the net result being suboptimal light levels on the walls, arches, high ceilings, the interior dome, and the many mosaics, carvings, and other adoring artistic details. With the new LED lighting, these areas have greater, more evenly distributed luminosity throughout.

'Visually absent within the structure were the extraordinary architectural highlights, such as unique gold-flake bonded brickwork within the ceiling of the nave and the gold leaf on the main dome. The new RGB floodlights are able to highlight these details beautifully, which for the most part had been obscured by darkness,' said Guy Albert de Chimay, Executive Vice President of Green Arc Energy Advisors. 'Operationally, the church's staff is able to customize the color palate, saturation, and brightness at any time to create a specific lighting aesthetic or celebrate special events and holidays'.

Additionally, the original 550-watt tungsten-based theatrical lighting fixtures around the altar provided negligible, uneven light that left details on and around the altar shrouded in varying degrees of blackness. These fixtures were replaced with RGBAW and variable-white LED lighting. 'The installation of new 150- and 360-watt LED fixtures allows for complete saturation, which breathes new life around the sanctuary area of the altar and the apse with superb illumination,' said de Chimay.

No structural modifications were required to make any of the conversions. All new LED fixtures were mounted on existing points, hidden behind masonry hip walls. Phase 2, completed in December 2018, involved complete lighting conversion to the majority of the six-story Community House, which is set back unobtrusively alongside the church. LED fixtures throughout this facility were installed, including in the pre-K school, school offices and classrooms, meeting and communal spaces, locker rooms, and all the corridors and staircases.

Regarding the advantages that LED lighting offers versus traditional lighting, GuyAlbert de Chimay conveyed, 'As with all LED upgrades, the benefits extend well beyond better light distribution, color saturation, and initial usage reductions. In terms of direct wattage, new LED fixtures eliminate a large part of the passive heat gain associated with legacy lamps, which must be removed by a facility's HVAC system. In most facilities, for every dollar saved at the plug, a dollar is saved in HVAC costs during the cooling season. LEDs also offer design flexibility in order to accommodate the configurations of any new or existing spaces.' All of the RGB and variable-white LED fixtures operate with a wireless, computer- and app-based DMX 512 channel control network, allowing for easy use. This means that all operational functions are reduced to simple push-button commands.

With reductions in direct wattage consumption and a substantial reduction of passive heat gain, Green Arc LED lighting solutions can reduce a facility's energy usage by well over 80%. Green Arc products are available for sale independently or as turnkey installations. Utilizing its licensed electricians, Green Arc is able to deliver complete installations of its entire product line on a national basis. Green Arc Energy Advisors is a registered trademark.